Other Child
by Phantom Rosabelle
Summary: [Minor spoilers for 2.12 "Pick Your Poison".] Sharon and Rusty have a normal night in spite of everything, and Sharon slips up again.


**Notes:** IT'S BACK IT'S BACK IT'S BAAAAACK. That was more than I expected we would actually get and ohhhh, my _heart_. I love these two to impossible little pieces.

**Other Child**

**rosabelle**

They stop on the way home for burgers. Rusty's unclear if it's an apology for putting him through three months of being shadowed by an entirely unnecessary security detail, or if it's a reward for agreeing to see the dumb therapist. He thinks the first is more likely, because he's already been rewarded for the second and he knows how she feels about that.

So he thanks her for the treat. She touches his cheek with a smile he wishes wouldn't tremble so much, and then she takes them home.

Safety descends upon him the moment he enters the condo. It's a physical sensation just as much as it's an emotional one—he _feels_ the twin weights of fear and anxiety lift, and he allows his shoulders to relax. In here, he can relax a little.

The security detail waits outside; they're on the eleventh floor and his only way out is through the front door. In here, it's just the two of them, and it's the only place he has left to feel normal.

But Sharon isn't acting entirely normal herself, because she asks if he wants to watch a movie _before_ she asks if he's finished his homework.

And really, he just wants to relish the forgotten luxuries of _aloneness_ and _privacy_ until tomorrow morning, but he still feels uncomfortable pinpricks of guilt for telling her that he wanted to go to boarding school (even if she _had_ called his bluff without so much as blinking), and she's granting him option three even if he gave up something in return, and... he just wants her to know that he appreciates it.

So Rusty plops himself down on the ground before the TV cabinet and rifles through the movies, even as he says, "I don't think the movie I want to watch is the movie you want to watch."

"It's doubtful," Sharon agrees. She sinks into the couch with a little sigh, and slides off her heels. Those she sets neatly to the side and settles herself cross-legged on the couch, massaging the balls of her feet. "But I'm willing to suffer through one with you anyway."

"Suffer through one." He mimics her tone well enough to earn himself a raised eyebrow, but it's tempered by affection. He pulls out two DVD's and holds them up for her approval. "Has it ever occurred to you that your total hatred of horror movies is completely unfair?"

Sharon eyes the two movies in his hands with a distinct air of distaste. "What's completely unfair is your insistence on watching _Resident Evil _for the hundredth time."

"You just don't appreciate the classics."

"_Frankenstein_ is a classic, Rusty. _Resident Evil_ is not."

"It's also, like, a hundred years old. And _terrible_."

"The book was better, I agree."

"You're impossible," he informs her flatly. All of their arguments lately have been serious and important, and he's missed the little ones over trivial things.

Sharon only smiles at him serenely and rearranges her legs, stretching out lengthwise on the couch. "I am well aware of that, thank you."

Someday, maybe, he will learn how she wins _every_ argument. Today is not that day, but he's not ready to forfeit, either. "If you hate it so much, what'd you buy it for?"

"My other children—" He almost misses it, the little hitch in her voice, the one that throws off the steady rhythm of her voice, before she finishes smoothly, "Share your awful taste in movies."

It takes him a moment to realize what she's said, and then he freezes with the movie still in his hand. He's twisted away from her with the intention of putting the disc into the DVD player, and he turns back slowly to look at her. "Your _other_ children," he repeats, just to be sure.

And, just for a moment, he sees her with no defenses; she smiles at him with a rare look of unguarded affection, a throw pillow hugged close to her chest, and quietly agrees, "My other children."

There is an unexpected tightness in his throat. Rusty swallows it back and he has to turn away, because he knows that if he looks at her a second longer, his eyes will start to burn. He's known, he thinks, for awhile—she spent three months trying to smother him into safety while he resisted at every step of the way and she refused to give a single inch.

But she's never acknowledged it before, and what surprises him the most is how little it changes anything now that she has.

"Okay," he says hoarsely, and remembers the disc in his hand as he coughs. "Fine. We can watch something else. Did you delete _Sharknado_ from the DVR?"


End file.
